Portal:Jazz

Welcome to the jazz portal

Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, hymns, marches, vaudeville song, and dance music. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major form of musical expression in traditional and popular music. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, complex chords, call and response vocals, polyrhythms and improvisation.

As jazz spread around the world, it drew on national, regional, and local musical cultures, which gave rise to different styles. New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass band marches, French quadrilles, biguine, ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation. However, jazz did not begin as a single musical tradition in New Orleans or elsewhere. In the 1930s, arranged dance-oriented swing big bands, Kansas City jazz (a hard-swinging, bluesy, improvisational style), and gypsy jazz (a style that emphasized musette waltzes) were the prominent styles. Bebop emerged in the 1940s, shifting jazz from danceable popular music toward a more challenging "musician's music" which was played at faster tempos and used more chord-based improvisation. Cool jazz developed near the end of the 1940s, introducing calmer, smoother sounds and long, linear melodic lines.

The mid-1950s saw the emergence of hard bop, which introduced influences from rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues to small groups and particularly to saxophone and piano. Modal jazz developed in the late 1950s, using the mode, or musical scale, as the basis of musical structure and improvisation, as did free jazz, which explored playing without regular meter, beat and formal structures. Jazz fusion appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s, combining jazz improvisation with rock music's rhythms, electric instruments, and highly amplified stage sound. In the early 1980s, a commercial form of jazz fusion called smooth jazz became successful, garnering significant radio airplay. Other styles and genres abound in the 21st century, such as Latin and Afro-Cuban jazz. (Full article...)

Selected articles -

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Monkey Business is the fourth studio album by American group the Black Eyed Peas. It was released on June 7, 2005, by A&M Records, Interscope Records and will.i.am Music Group.

Following the global success of their third studio album, Elephunk (2003), the group embarked on the Elephunk Tour. While touring, they began recording Monkey Business in June 2004, continuing for the following six months at various locations worldwide. Executive producers Ron Fair and will.i.am enlisted producers Printz Board, Noize Trip, Timbaland and Danja for the album. Their final product was a hip hop and pop record incorporating an array of genres, such as crunk, funk, reggae, Raï, calypso, soul, jazz and Latin rock. Similarly to Elephunk, it explores lyrical themes such as relationship complexities, sexual attraction, partying, fame and, to a lesser extent, social issues. Controversy arose over the lyrics of the track "My Humps", which center on a woman using her physical attributes to accomplish her goals. (Full article...)
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This is a list of notable venues where jazz music is played. It includes jazz clubs, clubs, dancehalls and historic venues such as theatres. A jazz club is a venue where the primary entertainment is the performance of live jazz music. Jazz clubs are usually a type of nightclub or bar, which is licensed to sell alcoholic beverages. Jazz clubs were in large rooms in the eras of Orchestral jazz and big band jazz, when bands were large and often augmented by a string section. Large rooms were also more common in the Swing era, because at that time, jazz was popular as a dance music, so the dancers needed space to move. With the transition to 1940s-era styles like Bebop and later styles such as soul jazz, small combos of musicians such as quartets and trios were mostly used, and the music became more of a music to listen to, rather than a form of dance music. As a result, smaller clubs with small stages became practical.

In the 2000s, jazz clubs may be found in the basements of larger residential buildings, in storefront locations or in the upper floors of retail businesses. They can be rather small compared to other music venues, such as rock music clubs, reflecting the intimate atmosphere of jazz shows and long-term decline in popular interest in jazz. Despite being called "clubs", these venues are usually not exclusive. Some clubs, however, have a cover charge if a live band is playing. Some jazz clubs host "jam sessions" after hours or on early evenings of the week. At jam sessions, both professional musicians and advanced amateurs will typically share the stage. (Full article...)
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The Grammy Award for Best Jazz Fusion Performance was an award given to a song or album for excellence in the jazz fusion genre, a combination of rock and jazz. It was given at the Grammy Awards, which began in 1958 under the name Gramophone Awards. Honors in several categories are presented at the ceremony annually by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to "honor artistic achievement, technical proficiency and overall excellence in the recording industry, without regard to album sales or chart position".

Originally called the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Fusion Performance, Vocal or Instrumental, the award was first presented to the jazz band Weather Report at the 22nd Grammy Awards in 1980 for the album 8:30. In 1988, the category name changed to Best Jazz Fusion Performance and was moved to a newly created Fusion field. The category name was retired before the 33rd Grammy Awards (1992) with the addition of the award for Best Contemporary Jazz Performance (currently known as Best Contemporary Jazz Album). (Full article...)
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In a Silent Way is a studio album by the American jazz trumpeter, composer, and bandleader Miles Davis, released on July 30, 1969, on Columbia Records. Produced by Teo Macero, the album was recorded in one session date on February 18, 1969, at CBS 30th Street Studio in New York City. Macero edited and arranged Davis's recordings from the session to produce the album. Marking the beginning of his "electric" period, In a Silent Way has been regarded by music writers as Davis's first fusion recording, following a stylistic shift toward the genre in his previous records and live performances.

Upon its release, the album was met by controversy among music critics, particularly those of jazz and rock music, who were divided in their reaction to its experimental musical structure and Davis's electric approach. Since its initial reception, it has been regarded by fans and critics as one of Davis's greatest and most influential works. In 2001, Columbia Legacy and Sony Music released the three-disc box set The Complete In a Silent Way Sessions, which includes additional tracks. (Full article...)
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Hot 8 playing funeral for New Orleans blogger Ashley Morris, April 2008

The Hot 8 Brass Band is a New Orleans–based brass band which blends hip-hop, jazz and funk styles with traditional New Orleans brass sounds. It was formed by Bennie Pete, Jerome Jones, and Harry Cook in 1995. Two earlier bands merged, the Looney Tunes Brass Band and the High Steppers Brass Band.

Since June 2007, the band has been signed to Tru Thoughts, a United Kingdom label, the label's first U.S. act. (Full article...)
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In music, groove is the sense of an effect ("feel") of changing pattern in a propulsive rhythm or sense of "swing". In jazz, it can be felt as a quality of persistently repeated rhythmic units, created by the interaction of the music played by a band's rhythm section (e.g. drums, electric bass or double bass, guitar, and keyboards). Groove is a significant feature of popular music, and can be found in many genres, including salsa, rock, soul, funk, and fusion.

From a broader ethnomusicological perspective, groove has been described as "an unspecifiable but ordered sense of something that is sustained in a distinctive, regular and attractive way, working to draw the listener in." Musicologists and other scholars have analyzed the concept of "groove" since around the 1990s. They have argued that a "groove" is an "understanding of rhythmic patterning" or "feel" and "an intuitive sense" of "a cycle in motion" that emerges from "carefully aligned concurrent rhythmic patterns" that stimulates dancing or foot-tapping on the part of listeners. The concept can be linked to the sorts of ostinatos that generally accompany fusions and dance musics of African derivation (e.g. African-American, Afro-Cuban, Afro-Brazilian, etc.). (Full article...)
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The Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Performance, Male was an honor presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to male recording artists for quality jazz vocal performances (songs or albums). Honors in several categories are presented at the ceremony annually by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to "honor artistic achievement, technical proficiency and overall excellence in the recording industry, without regard to album sales or chart position".

Prior to 1981, the gender-neutral category of Best Jazz Vocal Performance existed. The first award specifically for male performances was presented to George Benson in 1981 for the song "Moody's Mood". The category remained unchanged until 1985, when it was combined with the award for Best Jazz Vocal Performance, Female and presented in the genderless category. Gender-specific awards were once again presented from 1986 until 1991. In 1992, the two categories were combined and presented as the category Best Jazz Vocal Performance. This category was later renamed to Best Jazz Vocal Album beginning in 2001. While the gender-specific award has not been presented since the category merge in 1992, an official confirmation of its retirement has not been announced. (Full article...)
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Gypsy jazz (also known as sinti jazz, gypsy swing, jazz manouche or hot club-style jazz) is a musical idiom inspired by the Romani jazz guitarist Jean "Django" Reinhardt (1910–1953), in conjunction with the French jazz violinist Stéphane Grappelli (1908–1997), as expressed by their group the Quintette du Hot Club de France. The style has its origins in France and the Manouche clan of Romanis, and has remained popular amongst this clan. Gypsy jazz is often called by the French name jazz manouche, or alternatively, manouche jazz in English-language sources.

Reinhardt was foremost among a group of gypsy guitarists working in Paris from the 1930s to the 1950s. The group included the brothers Baro, Sarane, and Matelo Ferret and Reinhardt's brother Joseph "Nin-Nin" Reinhardt. (Full article...)
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American blues musician Mississippi Fred McDowell in 1960

Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the African-American culture. The blues form is ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll, and is characterized by the call-and-response pattern, the blues scale, and specific chord progressions, of which the twelve-bar blues is the most common. Blue notes (or "worried notes"), usually thirds, fifths or sevenths flattened in pitch, are also an essential part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove.

Blues music is characterized by its lyrics, bass lines, and instrumentation. Early traditional blues verses consisted of a single line repeated four times. It was only in the first decades of the 20th century that the most common current structure became standard: the AAB pattern, consisting of a line sung over the four first bars, its repetition over the next four, and then a longer concluding line over the last bars. Early blues frequently took the form of a loose narrative, often relating the racial discrimination and other challenges experienced by African Americans. (Full article...)
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Club Harlem, 1964

Club Harlem was a nightclub at 32 North Kentucky Avenue in the Northside neighborhood of Atlantic City, New Jersey. Founded in 1935 by Leroy "Pop" Williams, it was the city's premier club for black jazz performers. Like its Harlem counterpart, the Cotton Club, many of Club Harlem's guests were white, wealthy and eager to experience a night of African-American entertainment.

An elaborate all-black revue called Smart Affairs, produced by Larry Steele and headquartered at the club from 1946 to 1971, featured 40 to 50 acts and was on a par with Broadway productions. Performers at the club included Sammy Davis Jr. (who would also invite the white members of the Rat Pack), Dick Gregory, Dinah Washington, Bootsie Barnes, Gladys Knight, Teddy Pendegrass, Hot Lips Page, and Wild Bill Davis. Drummer Crazy Chris Columbo conducted the club orchestra for 34 years. Club Harlem was outfitted with seven bars, two lounges and a main showroom seating more than 900. A cocktail lounge had room for 400 guests with continuous entertainment available. (Full article...)
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The Newport Jazz Festival is an annual American multi-day jazz music festival held every summer in Newport, Rhode Island. Elaine Lorillard established the festival in 1954, and she and husband Louis Lorillard financed it for many years. They hired George Wein to organize the first festival and bring jazz to Rhode Island.

Most of the early festivals were broadcast on Voice of America radio, and many performances were recorded and released as albums. In 1972, the Newport Jazz Festival was moved to New York City. In 1981, it became a two-site festival when it was returned to Newport while continuing in New York. From 1984 to 2008, the festival was known as the JVC Jazz Festival; in the economic downturn of 2009, JVC ceased its support of the festival and was replaced by CareFusion. (Full article...)
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Solo is a studio album by Cuban jazz performer Gonzalo Rubalcaba. It was released by Blue Note Records on March 7, 2006, and peaked at number 22 in the Billboard Top Jazz Albums chart. The album is titled Solo since no additional performers were included on the recording as in Rubalcaba's previous albums.

Also produced by Rubalcaba, Solo was released following his second collaborative work with Charlie Haden on the album Land of the Sun, which resulted in a Grammy Award for Haden.
The album includes fifteen tracks and met with mostly positive reviews by critics, most commenting on the ability of the performer and the simplicity of the arrangements. The album was nominated for a Billboard Latin Music Award, and won the Latin Grammy for Best Latin Jazz Album. (Full article...)
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1980 is a studio album by American singer-songwriter Gil Scott-Heron and keyboardist Brian Jackson. Their ninth album together, it was recorded from August to October 1979 during a period of creative tension between the two musicians and released in February 1980 by Arista Records.

Scott-Heron and Jackson produced 1980 with Malcolm Cecil and performed with a host of studio musicians, including drummer Harvey Mason, guitarist Marlo Henderson, and trombonist Bill Watrous. They incorporated sounds from contemporary pop music, such as disco, dance, and new wave, into their established jazz-funk style. Jackson arranged the songs and played a number of instruments, including Cecil's TONTO synthesizer, which was featured in the album's cover photo. Scott-Heron's lyrics explore contemporary concerns in US society, such as nuclear power and racism, as well as pressures in life and fear of the future. Several songs address the idealism held among African Americans amid the declining Black Power movement. (Full article...)
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Cherry Poppin' Daddies performing in California in 2017

The Cherry Poppin' Daddies are an American swing and ska band established in Eugene, Oregon, in 1989. Formed by singer-songwriter Steve Perry and bassist Dan Schmid, the band has experienced numerous personnel changes over the course of its 30-year history, with only Perry, Schmid and trumpeter Dana Heitman currently remaining from the original founding lineup.

The Daddies' music is primarily a mix of swing and ska, contrastingly encompassing both traditional jazz-influenced variations of the genres as well as contemporary rock and punk hybrids, characterized by a prominent horn section and Perry's acerbic and innuendo-laced lyricism often concerning dark or political subject matter. While the band's earliest releases were mostly grounded in punk and funk rock, their later studio albums have since incorporated elements from many diverse genres of popular music and Americana into their sound, including rockabilly, rhythm and blues, soul and world music. (Full article...)
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Speak No Evil is the sixth album by Wayne Shorter. It was released in June 1966 by Blue Note Records. The music combines elements of hard bop and modal jazz, and features Shorter on tenor saxophone, trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter and drummer Elvin Jones. The cover photo is of Shorter's first wife, Teruko (Irene) Nakagami, whom he met in 1961. (Full article...)

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Selected biographies -

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Holiday with her dog, Mister c. 1947

Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday made significant contributions to jazz music and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly influenced by jazz instrumentalists, inspired a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo. Holiday was known for her vocal delivery and improvisational skills.

After a turbulent childhood, Holiday began singing in nightclubs in Harlem where she was heard by producer John Hammond, who liked her voice. Holiday signed a recording contract with Brunswick in 1935. Her collaboration with Teddy Wilson produced the hit "What a Little Moonlight Can Do", which became a jazz standard. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Holiday had mainstream success on labels such as Columbia and Decca. However, by the late 1940s, she was beset with legal troubles and drug abuse. After a short prison sentence, Holiday performed a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall.
She was a successful concert performer throughout the 1950s, with two further sold-out shows at Carnegie Hall. Because of personal struggles and an altered voice, Holiday's final recordings were met with mixed reaction, but were mild commercial successes. Her final album, Lady in Satin, was released in 1958. Holiday died of heart failure on July 17, 1959, at age 44. (Full article...)
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Publicity portrait, c. 1940s

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous jazz orchestra from 1924 through the rest of his life.

Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Ellington was based in New York City from the mid-1920s and gained a national profile through his orchestra's appearances at the Cotton Club in Harlem. A master at writing miniatures for the three-minute 78 rpm recording format, Ellington wrote or collaborated on more than one thousand compositions; his extensive body of work is the largest recorded personal jazz legacy, and many of his pieces have become standards. He also recorded songs written by his bandsmen, such as Juan Tizol's "Caravan", which brought a Spanish tinge to big band jazz. (Full article...)
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Getz in 1958

Stan Getz (born Stanley Gayetski; February 2, 1927 – June 6, 1991) was an American jazz saxophonist. Playing primarily the tenor saxophone, Getz was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, with his prime influence being the wispy, mellow timbre of his idol, Lester Young. Coming to prominence in the late 1940s with Woody Herman's big band, Getz is described by critic Scott Yanow as "one of the all-time great tenor saxophonists". Getz performed in bebop and cool jazz groups. Influenced by João Gilberto and Antônio Carlos Jobim, he also helped popularize bossa nova in the United States with the hit 1964 single "The Girl from Ipanema". (Full article...)
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Hasaan Ibn Ali (born William Henry Langford, Jr.; May 6, 1931 – 1980) was an American jazz pianist and composer.

Ibn Ali was strongly influenced by Elmo Hope, and his playing was rapid and intense, retaining a sense of rhythm even when his style became increasingly unconventional. Only one recording of his playing – The Max Roach Trio Featuring the Legendary Hasaan – was released in his lifetime. Ibn Ali built a reputation in Philadelphia, where he influenced musicians including John Coltrane, but he remained little known elsewhere. (Full article...)
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Coltrane in 1963

John William Coltrane (September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967) was an American jazz saxophonist, bandleader and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music.

Born and raised in North Carolina, after graduating from high school Coltrane moved to Philadelphia, where he studied music. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes and was one of the players at the forefront of free jazz. He led at least fifty recording sessions and appeared on many albums by other musicians, including trumpeter Miles Davis and pianist Thelonious Monk. Over the course of his career, Coltrane's music took on an increasingly spiritual dimension, as exemplified on his most acclaimed album A Love Supreme (1965) and others. Decades after his death, Coltrane remains influential, and he has received numerous posthumous awards, including a special Pulitzer Prize, and was canonized by the African Orthodox Church. (Full article...)
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Mal Waldron in 1987

Malcolm Earl "Mal" Waldron (August 16, 1925 – December 2, 2002) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger. He started playing professionally in New York in 1950, after graduating from college. In the following dozen years or so Waldron led his own bands and played for those led by Charles Mingus, Jackie McLean, John Coltrane, and Eric Dolphy, among others. During Waldron's period as house pianist for Prestige Records in the late 1950s, he appeared on dozens of albums and composed for many of them, including writing his most famous song, "Soul Eyes", for Coltrane. Waldron was often an accompanist for vocalists, and was Billie Holiday's regular accompanist from April 1957 until her death in July 1959.

A breakdown caused by a drug overdose in 1963 left Waldron unable to play or remember any music; he regained his skills gradually, while redeveloping his speed of thought. He left the U.S. permanently in the mid-1960s, settled in Europe, and continued touring internationally until his death. (Full article...)
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Michael "Dodo" Marmarosa (December 12, 1925 – September 17, 2002) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger.

Originating in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Marmarosa became a professional musician in his mid-teens, and toured with several major big bands, including those led by Tommy Dorsey, Gene Krupa, and Artie Shaw into the mid-1940s. He moved to Los Angeles in 1945, where he became increasingly interested and involved in the emerging bebop scene. During his time on the West Coast, he recorded in small groups with leading bebop and swing musicians, including Howard McGhee, Charlie Parker, and Lester Young, as well as leading his own bands. (Full article...)
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Peterson in 1977

Oscar Emmanuel Peterson (August 15, 1925 – December 23, 2007) was a Canadian jazz pianist and composer. As a virtuoso who is considered to be one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time, Peterson released more than 200 recordings, won eight Grammy Awards, as well as a lifetime achievement award from the Recording Academy, and received numerous other awards and honours. He played thousands of concerts worldwide in a career lasting more than 60 years. He was called the "Maharaja of the keyboard" by Duke Ellington, simply "O.P." by his friends, and informally in the jazz community, "the King of inside swing".

Peterson worked in duos with Sam Jones, Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, Joe Pass, Irving Ashby, Count Basie, and Herbie Hancock. He considered the trio with Ray Brown and Herb Ellis "the most stimulating" and productive setting for public performances and studio recordings. In the early 1950s, he began performing with Brown and drummer Charlie Smith as the Oscar Peterson Trio. Shortly afterward Smith was replaced by guitarist Irving Ashby, who had been a member of the Nat King Cole Trio. Ashby, who was a swing guitarist, was soon replaced by Barney Kessel. Their last recording, On the Town with the Oscar Peterson Trio, recorded live at the Town Tavern in Toronto, was said to have captured a remarkable degree of emotional as well as musical understanding among three players. (Full article...)
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Zappa performing at Ekeberghallen in Oslo, Norway in 1977

Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American guitarist, composer, bandleader, actor, comedian, satirist, filmmaker, activist and freedom of speech advocate. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa composed rock, pop, jazz, jazz fusion, orchestral and musique concrète works; he additionally produced nearly all the 60-plus albums he released with his band the Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist. His work is characterized by nonconformity, improvisation sound experimentation, musical virtuosity and satire of American culture. Zappa also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed album covers. He is considered one of the most innovative and stylistically diverse musicians of his generation.

As a mostly self-taught composer and performer, Zappa had diverse musical influences that led him to create music that was sometimes difficult to categorize. While in his teens, he acquired a taste for 20th-century classical modernism, African-American rhythm and blues, and doo-wop music. He began writing classical music in high school, while simultaneously playing drums in rhythm-and-blues bands, later switching to electric guitar. His debut studio album with the Mothers of Invention, Freak Out! (1966), combined satirical but seemingly conventional rock-and-roll songs with extended sound collages. He continued this eclectic and experimental approach throughout his career. (Full article...)
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Bennett in 1995

Anthony Dominick Benedetto (August 3, 1926 – July 21, 2023), known professionally as Tony Bennett, was an American jazz and traditional pop singer. He received many accolades, including 20 Grammy Awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award, and two Primetime Emmy Awards. Bennett was named a National Endowments for the Arts Jazz Master and a Kennedy Center Honoree. He founded the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in Astoria, Queens, New York, along with Exploring the Arts, a non-profit arts education program. He sold more than 50 million records worldwide and earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Bennett began singing at an early age. He fought in the final stages of World War II as a U.S. Army infantryman in the European Theater. Afterward, he developed his singing technique, signed with Columbia Records and had his first number-one popular song with "Because of You" in 1951. Several popular tracks such as "Rags to Riches" followed in early 1953. He then refined his approach to encompass jazz singing. He reached an artistic peak in the late 1950s with albums such as The Beat of My Heart and Basie Swings, Bennett Sings. In 1962, Bennett recorded his signature song, "I Left My Heart in San Francisco". His career and personal life experienced an extended downturn during the height of the rock music era. Bennett staged a comeback in the late 1980s and 1990s, putting out gold record albums again and expanding his reach to the MTV Generation while keeping his musical style intact. (Full article...)
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Ralph Oliver Patt (5 December 1929 – 6 October 2010) was an American jazz guitarist who introduced major-thirds tuning. Patt's tuning simplified the learning of the fretboard and chords by beginners and improvisation by advanced guitarists. He invented major-thirds tuning under the inspiration of first the atonal music of Arnold Schoenberg and second the jazz of John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman.

He graduated with a degree in geology from the University of Pittsburgh. After his career as a guitarist, he worked as a geologist and as a hydrologist, often consulting on projects related to the U.S. Department of Energy. (Full article...)
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Spanier performing at Nick's Tavern, New York, c. June 1946

Francis Joseph "Muggsy" Spanier (November 9, 1901 – February 12, 1967) was an American jazz cornetist based in Chicago. He was a member of the Bucktown Five, pioneers of the "Chicago style" that straddled traditional Dixieland jazz and swing. (Full article...)
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Bailey photographed by William P. Gottlieb in New York City, 1947

Mildred Bailey (born Mildred Rinker; February 27, 1907 – December 12, 1951) was a Native American jazz singer during the 1930s, known as "The Queen of Swing", "The Rockin' Chair Lady", and "Mrs. Swing".

She recorded the songs "For Sentimental Reasons", "It's So Peaceful in the Country", "Doin' The Uptown Lowdown", "Trust in Me", "Where Are You?", "I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart", "Small Fry", "Please Be Kind", "Darn That Dream", "Rockin' Chair", "Blame It on My Last Affair", and "Says My Heart". She had three records that reached number one on the popular charts. (Full article...)
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Zorn in 2023

John Zorn (born September 2, 1953) is an American composer, conductor, saxophonist, arranger and producer who "deliberately resists category". His avant-garde and experimental approaches to composition and improvisation are inclusive of jazz, rock, Jewish music, hardcore, classical, contemporary, surf, metal, soundtrack, ambient, and world music. Rolling Stone noted that "[alt]hough Zorn has operated almost entirely outside the mainstream, he's gradually asserted himself as one of the most influential musicians of our time".

Zorn engaged New York City's downtown music scene in the mid-1970s, collaborating with improvising artists and experimenting with compositional strategies and arrangements. Over the next decade he performed throughout Europe and Japan and recorded on independent US and European labels. He released The Big Gundown, reconstructing the spaghetti Western, gangster and war movie themes of Ennio Morricone, a formative musical influence, to acclaim in 1986. Spillane and Naked City further demonstrated Zorn's ability to merge and blend musical styles in new and challenging formats. (Full article...)
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Gwyneth Herbert

Gwyneth Herbert (born 26 August 1981) is a British singer-songwriter, composer, multi-instrumentalist and record producer. Initially known for her interpretation of jazz and swing standards, she is now established as a writer of original compositions, including musical theatre. She has been described as "an exquisite wordsmith" with "a voice that can effortlessly render any emotion with commanding ease" and her songs as being "impressively crafted and engrossing vignette[s] of life's more difficult moments".

Three of her six albums have received four-starred reviews in the British national press. Another album, Between Me and the Wardrobe, received a five-starred review in The Observer. Her seventh album, Letters I Haven't Written, was released in October 2018. (Full article...)

Did you know (auto-generated)

... that Utah Jazz basketball broadcasts returned in 2023 to a station that is named after the team?
... that Jazzy's 2023 single "Giving Me" made her the first Irish solo female act to top the Irish Singles Chart since Julie-Anne Dineen in 2009 with "Do You Believe"?
... that Markus Becker, who earned awards for his recording of the complete piano works by Max Reger, also recorded jazz?
... that Wanda Warska was nicknamed the "First Lady of Polish Jazz"?
... that before becoming an actor, Jeremy Allen White trained in ballet, jazz, and tap dancing?
... that Tim Kinsella made most of the lyrics for Cap'n Jazz's only album, Shmap'n Shmazz, during his first experience with psilocybin mushrooms?

More did you know...

... that Kid Ory's composition "Ory's Creole Trombone" was the first jazz record made by a black orchestra?
... that Mircea Florian, seen as one of the four leading protest singers in Communist Romania in his folk rock years, pioneered minimal music in his career as a computer scientist?
... that Dira Sugandi (pictured) was awarded the Indonesian Young Jazz Talent Award for her duet with Jason Mraz?
... that Papa Celestin's Golden Wedding featured Papa Celestin's final recording session before his death?

August - December 2011

Selected recording

"All Of No Man's Land Is Ours", A song written by James Europe and Noble Sissle, with vocals by Noble Sissle. Recorded around March 14, 1919.

credit: public domain

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Jazz
General topics	Outline of jazz Jazz (word) Jazz band Big band Improvisation Jazz Jam session Scat singing Swing performance Jazz bass Jazz drumming Jazz guitar French horn in jazz Jazz piano Jazz trombone Jazz violin Vocal jazz Women in jazz
Genres	Afrobeat Avant-garde jazz Bebop Hard bop Neo-bop jazz Post-bop Cape jazz Chamber jazz Cool jazz Dixieland Flamenco jazz Folk jazz Free jazz Free funk Free improvisation Punk jazz Gypsy jazz Jazz-funk Jazz fusion Jazz rap Latin jazz Afro-Cuban jazz M-Base Mainstream jazz Marabi Modal jazz Nu jazz Orchestral jazz Organ trio Progressive jazz Ska jazz Smooth jazz Soul jazz Stride Swing Swing revival Third stream Trad jazz
Musicians	Bassists Clarinetists Drummers Guitarists Organists Percussionists Pianists Saxophonists Trombonists Trumpeters Vibraphonists Violinists Vocalists
Musicians by genre	Bebop Chamber jazz Cool jazz and West Coast jazz Hard bop Jazz fusion Scat Smooth jazz Soul jazz Swing
Standards	Pre-1920 1920s 1930s 1940s post-1950
Discographies	Bethlehem Blue Note BYG Cobblestone Contemporary CTI ECM ESP-Disk Flying Dutchman Freedom Groove Merchant Impulse! India Navigation JMT Landmark Mainstream Milestone MPS Muse Prestige Riverside Strata-East Verve Winter & Winter
Festivals	Beaches (Toronto) Cape Town Chicago Copenhagen Jakarta Monterey Montreal Montreux New Orleans Newport North Sea Pori Saint Lucia
Culture	Contrafacts Institutions and organizations Jazz funeral Jazz poetry Jazz royalty Jazz theory See Template: Jazz theory Rare groove Second line Venues
Regional scenes	Australian jazz Armenian jazz Azerbaijani jazz Jazz mugham Balkan jazz Bulgarian jazz Baltimore jazz Belgian jazz Brazilian jazz British jazz British dance band Canadian jazz Chicago jazz Continental European jazz Cuban jazz Czech and Slovak jazz Danish jazz Dutch jazz European free jazz French jazz German jazz Haitian jazz Indian jazz Indo jazz Iranian jazz Italian jazz Japanese jazz Kansas City jazz Latin American jazz Malawian jazz New Orleans jazz New York City jazz Polish jazz Yass South African jazz Cape jazz Spanish jazz Swedish jazz West Coast jazz Zimbabwean jazz
History	Bibliography of jazz Blues British dance band Ragtime Jazz Age Continental jazz Straight-ahead jazz Pre-1920 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 2020
Related	Acid jazz Contradanza Blues Jump blues New Orleans blues Brass band Exotica Quiet storm Ragtime Novelty ragtime Sophisti-pop West African music Western swing
Media	Bird Jazz (miniseries) The Jazz Singer Round Midnight Straight, No Chaser